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PS3 Firmware Update 3.70: Auto Cloud, Auto Trophy Sync

The latest, firmware update 3.70 for the PlayStation 3, falls into the latter category. Firstly, it adds the option to automate two existing features:

A new auto upload function for online save data back-up will be added to make it easier to back-up your game save data. Under (Game), select the game for which you want to automatically upload saved data, and then press the Triangle button.

Also, Trophies will now sync automatically at the timing of Auto Download.

Plus, they're tossing in a new recommendation function that lets you share your favorite PlayStation Store items (like games and videos) with your PSN friends. Basically, you'll be able to send a message with a store link embedded. A new category on the XMB called TV/Video Services will show up (for Netflix, Hulu PLUS, and VUDU), along with the following:

You’ll be able to find and download all of the video applications available on PS3 directly from this new XMB category.

A folder labeled “My Channels” within this category will allow you to easily access your downloaded applications.

Any videos downloaded from the PlayStation store will continue to be placed in the existing Video category on the XMB.

There are also a few new features for Blu-Ray and 3D viewing, so stay tuned for the 3.70 update, which should become available "soon." You know, can anyone even remember the XMB and the overall presentation of the PS3 when it first launched? Is it even possible to summarize every last update and new feature?

Comments (66 posts)

Glad to be a PLUS member. I look forward to using the cloud save feature, don't really care about the Trophy update.

BTW anyone else think the PSN will transfer to a paid service with the PS4? As more and more features get implemented via firmware updates that require a plus membership I'm starting to think it's a slow and steady path.

I think you're more likely to see cloud saves become standard as part of the 'free' PSN to support the PSV ability to perform cloud based game saves, but that will be the barebones cloud based save feature with no automation on the PS3 side, and I would think that Plus users will get more space compared to the basic users. So for example, we have 150MB right now, I could see Sony offering up to 100MB of cloud based save space to basic (free) users in support of the Vita, but Plus subscribers would get more space, perhaps 300MB, as well as more advanced features such as the automated synchronization of cloud saves.

As someone said further up Sony prides themselves on the Free aspect of this, and as long as they can differentiate the free capability from the premium, people will pay for Plus. If Plus members have more space and automation, it'd be worth it to me, even if there was a more limited, but free cloud based save capability.

there is so much that can still be done.and i swear sometimes i wonder if they even care.

just some examples:-Cross Game chat-a proper browser. (The PS3 Browser is such a POS! Make a deal with Mozilla for firefox or something!)-Ability to check emails etc.-Use proper facebook integration(Search FB Friends to add to PSN List, i really dont care about sharing achievements.)-record and send voice clips to friends-create an app section in the PSN Store. (That will open up a lot of possibilities, youtube etc etc)-Optimize the XMB, sorry but the game overlay is still slow and sometimes crashes-All games on the PSN Store should have manditory Videos or photos of the game in action that plays automatically. (look at Steam, or the app store.) half the Games on PSN i know nothing about them, why would i buy?-more deal days, cheaper introductory price for games. (Developers are making more and more DLC anyway. in the end it makes more money. Look at League of legends.)-wtf they need more digital copies of games.(i love having a disc but from a business standpoint digital is the way to go and it will, so get on board.)

-the list goes on

now i know a lot would say some of those ideas aren't relevant to gaming, but lets face it. it would make the PS3 a must own system, i mean cmon what to you think would happen if and when apple enters the gaming arena?

Hate to say it but I just think there will be no way XGC will be coming to the PS3, the amount of space taken by the xmb will somehow have to be cut and more to make it work, just don't think sony is up to redoing the whole thing.

I think cross game chat is the most over requested feature. Is it really that great to make first in list for requests?

Also, a reason Sony's browser isn't the best is because of Adobe's Flash presence in the market. Don't worry though, in time Flash will be pushed out in favor for the more open and flexible HTML 5 standard. You can thank Steve Jobs for that later. There's people who hate that move by apple, but once everything boils over it'll be better that a middle man isn't there to screw things up like flash does with HTML.

i believe legend is correct. we aren't going to see cross game chat on the ps3. what's odd about that is the vita will have it, but sony's flagship system won't. temjin is correct. this feature is easily the most requested item on the psblog. it's been requested over 3 million times.i am beginning to think there is some technical challenge that sony can't overcome to add this feature. i have heard that psn simply does not have the bandwidth for xgc. i've seen some evidence to support this in kz3. get a full squad with headsets and the audio cuts out horribly. heck it starts to cut out at 5 people with headsets.

sony could dramaticly improve the quality of the ps3 experience if they fixed the crappy browser and added cross game chat. i know several gamers that won't even touch a ps3 becuase it does not have xgc.

@WorldYou are correct. It's pretty much impossible. To implement it now, you would essentially have to have updates to every single game released to allow that function. I can't remember all the details, but Highlander described the full reasoning to me a while back, and I remember it making perfect sense. lol

Cross game chat is extremely unlikely to happen for PS3 because it's not in the firmware right now.

The firmware as it stands uses about 48MB (IIRC - though it may be smaller now) of system memory at all times. Sony has worked consistently to reduce that footprint and leave more memory for games. In order to add Cross game chat, a fairly decent sized module would be required. It would have to be part of the resident portion of the OS, since it has to work regardless of whether a game has it's own chat feature. Adding a large module to provide something like Cross Game chat would either break the memory limitation on the resident portion of the OS. Games have been implemented that use the full available memory, and so that cannot happen. Therefore Sony would have to kick out other portions of the resident OS to accommodate Cross Game Chat. Since Sony already has pared the resident OS down to minimize the memory footprint, there isn't exactly any fat to trim to make room for Cross Game Chat. So to do it, some other existing feature would have to be dropped from the resident portion of the PS3 OS.

All in all, that's not going to happen. Cross game chat has been implemented from the beginning on the Vita, and had it been implemented from the beginning on the PS3, this wouldn't be an issue. But trying to shoe-horn such functionality into it now is not particularly feasible. It's not impossible, just extremely unlikely.

So you get free games on steam every month? Come on guys, even if they aren't the best of games, you're getting a free game ranging between 5$-15$ as well as mini's and a ps1 game every month. The little features in my mind are just extra. The discounts and more just add to it as well. The only thing Steam does that is incredible, is their daily steam sales that is for anybody, it's the best for sure! lol

Ok, rube question here regarding the Cloud feature. If I am a plus member and have a ps3 at home and another one at another location, can I play a game at one place, save to the 'cloud' then go to the other location (with disc), turn on that ps3, log in to the same user name and continue from that save?

I travel a lot (MN to IA) and when in IA I'd like to play but would not like to have to start over or have a separate game save. I'd purchase a second ps3 if that was possible (pretending the ps4 isn't secretly coming soon to piss my wife off). IA is boring!

If the save is locked, you have to wait 24 hours. If not, apparently you have unlimited access, but you will of course have to use the Plus-enabled profile unless the game allows copying saves to other profiles.

Hello. I recently stumbled onto this site and the discussion on hand has really caught my attention enough to become a member and post a response.- The whole psn network is in disrepair. What discourages me is how a few minor improvements to their site as well as some useful software updates could rapidly change alot of opinions. The best ideas were the ones mentioned above:

having control with naming folders in the XMBMusic visualizers/ album artworkbetter internet browsergame previews in the ps store*(would be awesome) Heres a few of mine:

I want the ability to take in-game pictures that I could then throw up on my XMB background. (After playing FFXIII, HeavyRain, or MGS4 I still wonder why there isn't any option for this) Wouldn't that be something a game developer would want to put in their game?

Give us the ability to download any game I want into my system [Game Data Utility] I can't stomach some of those unnecessary load times in those titles where it isn't "required"

As mentioned above small additions like these would make a world of difference to the playstation community and the outlook of the PS3 as a whole.

The whole PSN is in disrepair? Sorry, you're going to have to back that up with examples of things that are broken and not repaired.

Peripheral features that are tertiary at best such as folder naming, music visualizers and such are not signs of disrepair, they are a sign that people are so desperate to find fault that they will look at the smallest things.

You can take in-game pictures in numerous games, and they are stored to the HDD and displayable as your XMB wall-paper. not sure where you've been the last three years, but you can do that in lots of games.

You're not going to get the ability to download complete game images to the HDD, so let's not even go there, security means it ain't gonna happen for games that are already on Bluray.

Small additions like these would only make a world of difference if your world is so small that the curvature on the visible horizon exceeds 179 degrees.

Pleasantries aside, the PSN is far from being in disrepair. I am running some remote races on GT5 from work right now. Yep, still working.

Outside of what Highlander said, the screen shot feature is in place. It's up to the developers to implement it. The fact that MGS or Heavy Rain doesn't use it is not Sony's fault. For example, I have tons of in game photos from GT5 in my picture folder that I use for XMB backgrounds.

I dunno what problems you're having, Amnesiac, but in regards to the ideas you felt were good ones...

You -CAN- name the folders in your XMB. I have all my PSN games sorted by genre. Action/Adventure games can be found in my Action/Adventure folder.

All my music has album artwork. You can even upload your own picture for album artwork if you, say, have a mixed playlist.

Most games in the PSN store have previews. Not all, but that's due to the developers. Not PSN.

Better browser? Well... yeah. I 100% agree with that one. It definitely needs a better browser.

As for the other two ideas you offered... they might be cool. I couldn't care less about either, personally. But they would be nice. Either way, however, that hardly classifies PSN or the XMB as being in 'disrepair'.

2 Great features that everyone wants, and yet Sony STILL haven't delivered!! Party Chat is the best thing about playing on 360 with friends. Doesn't matter what game you're playing or whether or not you're in the same lobby, you can all chat and organize a game together.

If Sony make Party Chat free with online play in their next update, Christmas will have come early for me.

Shame, all my friends love PS3 games, but they only play their 360's just so they can chat to each other while online. Sony has lost so many sales because this one feature IS STILL missing!! Yes, we demanded Party chat or X-game chat about 3 years ago... WHERE IS IT?!?!?

if cross game chat is a deal breaker for people then they need to remember why they play videogames in the first place or get the hell out. i can live without cross game chat in my game because when i play, i rather be lost in the game or talk with people in the same game.

C'mon Sony, this is awesome and all, but you need to at least have the basics down before you start bringing in the fancy stuff!!

Only reason, yes, THE ONLY reason my friends still game on 360 and not on PS3 is BECAUSE of 360's party chat feature and the fact that MS packed a wired headset in with every 360!!

I know PS3 is the better console with the better games, but MS pioneered and dominated online gaming and multiplayer!!!

Sony is catching up with Vita, and that's a great start, but the PS3 going this long without X-game chat or party chat?!?!? It's been nearly 5 years now!!! I just want to play online with my friends for free!! AND I wanna play great games online with my friends for free!!

Do Sony have any idea how many sales they are losing from the absence of this one feature?!?! How hard can it be to implement?!?!

Feels to me that PSN has some catching up to do with Live. Sure, it's more open for developers, and easier for me to make my way around, and there's heaps of cool features like Cloud saving and PS Plus.

But lack of Party chat, playing custom music in-game through the XMB and the inability to change your PSN ID name (even for a fee) makes it lag just that little bit behind Live Gold. (I say Gold cos you can't do much with a free Silver Subscription)

But here's the cool thing... I love single player experiences!!! PS3: 25, 360: 7

(Gears 1 and 2, Alan Wake, Halo Reach, Fable 2, Splinter Cell Conviction and Forza 3... all good to play offline as well as online)Last edited by Dancemachine55 on 8/10/2011 3:34:11 AM

Changing the PSN name would be great, that would be a worthy addition to the Plus service.

That custom soundtrack thing, as Underdog said, it's there, but the devs have to use it. This kind of comes to the same issue as the cross game chat - memory. The more things Sony forces to be cross game standards handled by the OS, the bigger the OS becomes. Sony instead provides hooks to allow games to use the built in music playback features of the XMB, and there's really no reason why games could not use them.

For that matter, there's zero reason why games could not do this before. All a dev has to do is include a relatively standard MP3 module and read the track-lists from the HDD. Good grief, you don't need XMB support to read the MP3s off the HDD on the PS3. If a game has an extensive tracklist already, why not include the ability to scan the HDD for music files and present them as options too? that can be done far more economically in-game than via the XMB. I think that part of the reason game devs don't do that is artistic direction, they have built the soundtrack to suit the game and don't feel like people should alter it - rather like watching a movie and complaining that you can't replace the classical mood music with thrash. It may well come down to devs not wanting to add the complexity of the option, but in the end, it really is up to the devs to do it.

I'm not really a trophy whore, so I'd like the option to delete some games from my trophy list.

As a gaming collector, I sample every game I get, even if I know that it's in a genre I don't usually like, just on the off-chance I might actually wind up liking that one particular game.

So there's a ton of games(and some PSN demos too) that I've actually gotten 1 single trophy for while sampling it, but the game itself, has been put away on the shelf forever cause I didn't like it at all.

So now I have all these funky 1-trophy games showing up that make it look like I'm a quitter & can't hang in a game more than a few minutes. And believe me, if I like a game, I always try to see it too the end.

It just really irks me to keep seeing those games I'll never play, still invading my personal space every damned time I go through my trophy list.

awwwww come on, cant this wait till next month?some of us are not made out of download usage you know?not even a 3rd of the way through the month and ive already used over half of my download usage thanks to the R3 beta and patches!what a waste thats been!!!!!!!

Awww come on. Can't you wait until next month? Some of us don't have unlimited insanity tolerance and I have used up most of mine on real life craziness with the economic instability and turmoil. And here you are typing. What a waste that's been.

Okay maybe I'm being a little selfish and gripy here but I mean. Mine is going 1% every 10 minutes or so. Like really WTF!? It's not as if I have dial up internet either. It's around 50mb/s. I don't know what's wrong. I'm just pissed because I will never.. Ever, use these features and I'm going through this for it -.-Last edited by nath08 on 8/10/2011 3:52:44 PM

Doesn't the original post suggest us to remember the expectations surrounding the overall presentation of the PS3 when it first launched? - My response was simply to reply to what I feel has been a neglectful approach Sony has taken with us, the consumers. For the most part you're all correct about why certain features will never happen or how its up to the developers to include in their game not Sony, but I'm speaking from the p.o.v. from somebody who expected it not to take 5 years to get to where the PS3 and Playstation Network is today. The rate of growth and development to the performance of this system has been kinda sluggish considering the powerhouse this machine is capable of being(Once again referring to Sony's overall presentation from when it was first launched) And if someone feels I should retract my statement that the PSN is in dis-repair? I can't do that for you but I will substitute it for maybe a more appropriate word (if that helps) lackluster. btw: I can name folders with my XMB? I was paraphrasing someones comment and didn't put much thought behind what I was writing lolz.---also displaying album artwork or just pictures in the music visualizer is what I should have written to clear up any small misunderstandings.

My wish list is short.. We simply need more internet browser efficiency, consistent flash player updates and an online music player app. I usually use Pandora, but can't multitask with it. For example, I can't browse other internet windows (Pandora pauses), organize my data @the xmb or shop on psn...

I do love the fact that this update does have new "toys" in it.. I'm just feeling a bit hopeless about the significance of other improvements due to the possibility of their next console taking center stage... I'm really not looking forward to a new console anytime soon.

I agree. I remember how exciting it was to read all the hype surrounding the PS3 and how it was going to revolutionize the gaming industry. I don't share that same feeling this time around, I don't think moving to a newer console is the right move just yet.Does anybody know what features the PS4 is supposed to have? what is its selling point? Really Really good graphics?Last edited by Amnesiac on 8/11/2011 8:14:34 PM

I don't really care about any of these features, but it's disappointing most of the new features nowadays are for PSN+ members only, where some of them don't even make any sense to put as PSN+ only features, like automatic updates.